30 December 2013 12:41 PM

Cut-Glass Accents, my one meeting with Nigella Lawson, and a Warning to Mr Jacubs

Once again we suffer from the problem of people seeing what they wish to see, rather than what is there. Take, for instance, the contribution from 'Alex, Newcastle' . He accuses me of having ’gone soft on drugs’ and of ‘flying a white flag’ and asks:

‘Have you changed your mind? Do you now resign yourself to the liberal (libertarian?) hegemony that began in the late 1960s that, you claim, does not regard drug taking as a moral issue? Or is it that you and the Mail on Sunday recognise that the issue of drug taking, at least when unaccompanied by other crime, is essentially a private affair and best left to self-regulation rather than the criminal law, no matter how morally abhorrent you or some of your readers might find it?’

Certainly not. I have many times made it clear that I view myself as an obituarist for my country, not a campaigner or a political activist. After the utter failure of my attempt to influence politics at the last election (when millions of conservative patriots voted for the Conservative Party that hates and despises them, so saving that ghastly organisation from what would otherwise have been certain doom), I have abandoned any serious hope of making any difference. It goes deeper than that. Over many years of presenting conservative and patriotic arguments in public places, I have found that it is becoming harder and harder to do so, not easier. The overwhelming bias of our culture, media and schools towards the ideas and beliefs of the left has produced three generations to whom my beliefs are now actually shocking.

So I have decided that telling the truth must be its own reward. As I have often stated here, what we do here matters somewhere else, often in ways we cannot see at the time. This applies to evil deeds and to good ones.

It is perfectly obvious that I am not arguing against the pursuit of Miss Lawson because I think that what she did was right, or should be applauded or condoned. I think her actions, as described by her in the witness box, to be revolting and immoral. I wish that we had an effective criminal law to encourage people such as her, and much of her generation in the London elite, to behave differently. Had we prosecuted such behaviour properly in the 1960s we might now have a lot less of it. But there is no point in pretending that 50 years of legal and moral retreat have had no effect, or that they can be simply reversed. To admit that is not in any way to concede that laws against these drugs are wrong. I have not shifted from my view that such laws are right, and should be enforced. I despise the self-styled ‘libertarian’ view that is now so common among self-indulgent post-Christian libertines who like to dress up their immorality as a struggle for freedom.

This is not ( as one Mr ‘Tom Law’ states) being ‘panned by many critics’. It is being attacked (and you may form your own judgement on the quality and justice of the attacks) by *two* critics. That’s not ‘many’.

What I also encountered was effective censorship. I am not a wholly obscure person. Drugs are not an arcane or obscure subject. Bloomsbury, my publishers, are a major power in publishing. Yet my book was not even mentioned on any BBC programme that discusses books, nor in almost all major Daily and Sunday newspapers, nor in most of the major magazines of opinion.

The case of Ms Lawson gave me an opportunity to seek further publicity for it, by restating its argument.

Some contributors, most absurdly of all, seem to suggest that I might have some personal reason to go soft on Miss Lawson. This is absurd, given my article last week scorning her complaint about her treatment in the witness box. I’ll say it again, if you decide to give evidence against someone, evidence which may ruin their life and put them in prison, don’t be surprised if their lawyer gives you a hard time in the witness box. Our wholly admirable system, of presumed innocence and adversarial trial, depends on such things. The silly campaign to go soft on witnesses ends up by increasing the power of the state to lock people up when it likes. If prosecution evidence can no longer be ruthlessly challenged, anyone can be railroaded into prison.

I don’t know Miss Lawson. I have had some small dealings with her brother Dominic, a distinguished journalist, and even smaller contact with her father Lord Lawson of Blaby, whom I have interviewed for a TV programme and met round a dinner table (I think it was the evening before the Brighton bomb) when he was a Cabinet minister, long ago.

I think I may have met her, briefly, before she was famous, at a party given for her first husband, John Diamond, when he was already very ill with the cancer that killed him. If I did, it was no more than a handshake and a 'hello'. I already knew from her 'Observer' columns that we weren't likely to agree about anything. Mr Diamond was friendly and helpful to me after a BBC programme (with which he was involved) traduced me back in the mid 1990s. He behaved in a very fair-minded way to put the matter right and, in later meetings, was always civil and pleasant - which most people with his left-wing opinions wouldn’t have been. I went to the party ( I hate parties) purely as a gesture to John Diamond, who died soon afterwards, and I stayed about 20 minutes before slipping away. These are not the sort of people I know.

Telling stories against yourself is always interesting. I mentioned my encounter with the lady who complained about my voice, when it was useless and pointless to do so, at the end of a 90-minute journey, because it had genuinely upset me. My own view is that , having kept quiet about it all that time, she would have been better to stay silent. The only purpose served by telling me off at that stage was to make me feel bad. Why would you do that?

I often ask people to stop using their mobile phones in quiet carriages (This wasn’t one. The wretched railbus on which we were travelling, into which Worst Late Western had decanted the passengers from another much larger train, has no quite carriages) . I don't stew for hours until I get cross, but politely ask them to cease. Quite a few choose to make a fight out of it, using some hilarious excuses,including 'the train's not moving' ( I am not making this up) but that's their look-out.

I would instantly have shut up had she asked me to do so at any stage. I wasn’t aware that I was speaking particularly loudly, and was sitting round a small table with two other people who were willingly conversing with me. I suspect that she mainly disagreed violently with what I was saying, and slowly worked herself into a fury, great enough to overcome her diffidence.

Thank you to the contributors who paid me kind compliments. The problem with one’s own voice is that one hears it normally through the bones of one’s head. And it sound quite different from the way it sounds to others. Because I broadcast from time to time, and often review those broadcasts to improve my technique, I hear myself as others hear me (and see myself as others see me). This is seldom enjoyable if you’re as vain as I am. My real voice, as I’ve explained here in the past, is cut-glass lower-upper-middle-class Royal Navy, as brilliantly portrayed in that fine film ‘In Which We Serve’. I think one of the reasons why I so much enjoy re-runs of films from this era is that they evoke memories of how my parents actually spoke during my prehistoric childhood. They’d already ceased to do so by the time I reached my teens, and it is only because of my discovery of a long-lost tape recording that I know for certain that they had changed the way they spoke. Mind you, both my father, who grew up speaking broad Hampshire, and my mother (whose childhood was spent being passed from relative to relative) would almost certainly have consciously altered their voices in their late teens and early twenties, to fit in with the world into which the Navy and the War had introduced them. I can still do the other thing, if I choose, but most people under 30 find it so shocking that I don’t.

But those of us who were brought up to speak like that discovered, in the early 1960s, that it was not wise to do so, and so we semi-consciously deepened our tones and moderated our vowels, to avoid the danger of mockery or perhaps lynching. The result can be a bit treacly. My late brother actually became more cut-glass later in life, after he had moved to Washington DC. I suspect this was because Americans are terrible snobs, and imagine that we all still speak like Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard.

Now to Mr Jacubs, whose gradual retreat from his original allegation against me makes Napoleon’s dogged retreat from Moscow look like a hundred-yard sprint.

But it still won’t do. Mr Jacubs must understand that he is in grave danger of being asked to leave this site for good. It is only because this is the season of goodwill, and because I suspect that he has a shaky grip on the meanings of some of the words he uses, that I haven’t already acted.

He says: ‘Firstly let me say that I do apologise to Peter for accusing him of “defending” almost every horrible Islamist crime. I should have used the word “excusing”. I also do not in any way suggest that Peter is excusing their crimes per se.’

Well, this is both wrong and incoherent. Mr Jacubs cannot simultaneously say that I am ‘excusing’ ‘almost every horrible Islamist crime’ (a thing I quite simply have not done in any way, shape or form, ever, and an accusation for which Mr Jacubs despite his repetitions of it, and my requests for substantiation, has never once dignified with a syllable of evidence), and that Mr Jacubs is not in any way suggesting that I am ‘excusing their crimes per se’. This is just contradictory having-it-both-ways drivel, as well as falsehood.

I have not ‘excused’ anything or anybody. I regard the drug-taking of Adebowale and Adebolajo not as an excuse but as a dangerous crime in its own right. That’s one of the many reasons for the need to use the criminal law against people who possess such drugs. The fact that you deliberately make yourself violently unhinged does not, in English law, get you out of paying for the crimes you commit in this state. I have excused nothing and nobody.

I have just said that the authorities and the media are imposing a false pattern of ‘Islamist militancy’ on a crime that is much more coherently explained by drug-induced mental illness, and which would be much more preventable if we accepted that explanation.

It’s interesting that none of my critics in this matter has challenged my evidence (How can they? It’s incontrovertible) . They have just resorted to the electronic equivalent of trying to shout me down, false accusations and personal abuse.

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@Paul P
I think that if academic results in Britain have declined (because it could be that other countries have just caught up), it probably has more to do changes in demographics that have occurred in your country over the years, rather than the factors you mentioned. But in this regard I think you have followed a pattern similar to the US with high levels of immigration. Similarly, compared to other developed countries, you have a high level of income inequality; perhaps the result of immigration or other economic policies, I don't know. But this is a problem we also have.
It also doesn't help matters that teenage pregnancy rates are higher than any other developed country, second only to the US. A lot has to do with moral decay, is what I would say.

The point is that the challenges facing one society over another are not always the same. Are we really to believe that educating the population of Minnesota is as challenging as educating New York or California? It isn't as challenging. We here in Utah should have better results then we do. We have a very homogeneous population. We do not have much poverty and income inequality is relatively low. But we spend less per pupil on education then any other state. 50th out of 50. Even Mississippi passed us up years ago. I've talked to really good, experienced teachers; even form principals who say that once you get over 30 students in the elementary school your biggest job becomes crowd control. It is just humanly impossible to teach that many children well. It doesn't matter how well trained you are, or how good your curriculum is. Now, we can get away with it a bit here because solid family support can make up for some of the deficiencies, but we could do much better if we had smaller classes. Our legislators are stingy though, so I don't expect much change soon.

We have never had a national curriculum but within the past couple of years the Common Core Curriculum has been developed. The math standards have been adopted by about 40 states. A couple of prominent mathematicians have highly endorsed the standards but some think it could take a few years to see any improvement from it.
My job is just to give the classroom teachers a needed break from their students, give the kids a chance to let off some steam and get some exercise, so they can go back to the classroom ready to learn and teach them a few sports skills. I don't have anywhere near the same amount of responsibility that the classroom teaches have.

"Paul P, "Such an accusation tends to be terminal as regards reputation, career and sometimes life." I've slowly come round to PH's view about the importance of receiving support from readers. I always was slow on the uptake."

I'm reminded of a scene from one of the Pink Panther movies in which Clouseau is fixating himself on some trivial incident outside a shop while a robbery is taking place in the background. It is of course hilarious. But not so hilarious is that our police will scatter tables and chairs in the rush out of the police station to answer a call to any of the numerous 'phobes' which now populate the statute book while they may turn out to a burglary or an assault if accountability paperwork permits. You follow what I'm saying here.

"The trouble with anyone from Britain ridiculing academic results in the US is that according to the only real data we have, which compares countries (the PISA assessment) Britain does not do that much better than the US."

Britain used to be high in the world rankings of envied education, but this is no longer the case. Decades of social engineering and political purpose have eroded the rankings. The various governments of the day simply deemed that more children from 'underprivileged' backgrounds would pass at 'A' level, and so the system was changed so that they would. A 'modular' system was introduced in which exams were held upon the completion of each 'module', which were then forgotten. A toting-up at the end of the year produced the required and inevitable passes.

Then it was deemed that more people who could barely read and write should be at university, and so degrees were created, the now ubiquitous Mickey Mouse degrees, which accommodated this requirement. Down went the world rankings again.

And so it went on. Bit by bit, actually quite quickly, Britain's reputation for world-ranking education made its way into the toilet.

My feeling is that we are moving in the American direction as education becomes more aligned with the requirements of a wholly consumer society. In the American system pupils (or students) from grade school to university more or less lark about until well into their university careers when things begin to become a bit more serious. As I have remarked here before, American postgraduate education is second to none in the world, and Nobel Prizes usually go to Americans.

You may not agree with this, and likely you won't, but my own experience, and from conversation with American grade school teachers (admittedly a very narrow margin), suggests to me that this is more the case than is not the case.

Paul P, "Such an accusation tends to be terminal as regards reputation, career and sometimes life." I've slowly come round to PH's view about the importance of receiving support from readers. I always was slow on the uptake.

Nick Agnew "but as I have said this would have been extremely difficult when you look at what Germany was equipped with. Britain and America could never have defeated Hitler had Moscow fallen"

Of course we would have. Ford could out produce anything the Germans mass produce under that sort of bombardment. It was always an absolute cert. The Germans knew it is impossible to invade (and then occupy) other European nations unless you have a proportion of the population on their side. The only way the Germans could have held Europe was to win the populations of Europe over by uniting in poltical and economic union, which is what Hitler wanted anyway, that is what we now call the EU.

Nick Agnew "I belive that there would have been pockets of resistance but this would have been useless against the mighty German war machine"

Do you really think the German population could sustain an occupation of Russia for any prolonged period of time? The 'mighty German war machine' might not looks so mighty stretched that far against the Slavs with the attitude of mind they had at the time.

Nick "The soviets gave far more attention to things like winter clothing,equipment and training including that of the ski troops"

That is just the sort of thing that wins wars.
You can say "if" about almost anything.
The Germans had developed much better BMW jet engines toward the end of the war but the war ended just before they made as impact. You could argue if the war had continued a few months they may have gained air superiority again. They were about to mass produce very advanced jet fighters, but nothing they did was not immediately possible to emulate. They ran out of alloys in the end, even their advanced jets were going to be made from wood.

Mikebarnes,
The trouble with anyone from Britain ridiculing academic results in the US is that according to the only real data we have, which compares countries (the PISA assessment) Britain does not do that much better than the US.

For example, from the PISA results on reading literacy:

"Average scores in reading literacy ranged from 570 in Shanghai-China to 384 in Peru. The U.S. average score was 498, which was not measurably different from the OECD average of 496. The U.S. average was lower than 19 education systems, higher than 34 education systems, and not measurably different than 11 education systems."

Notice from these results that the UK is not listed among the countries that did better than the US in reading literacy. It does not specify the countries that ranked below the US, but I recall reading elsewhere that the UK was one of the 11 countries that were "not measurably different"

We did worse in math:

"Average scores in mathematics literacy ranged from 613 in Shanghai-China to 368 in Peru. The U.S. average score was 481, which was lower than the OECD average of 494. The U.S. average was lower than 29 education systems, higher than 26 education systems, and not measurably different than 9 education systems. "

Here it does not list the countries above or below the US, but according to an article in the Guardian:
"The UK is ranked 23rd for reading, 26th for maths and 20th for science."

So you may have finished three spots ahead of the US in math.
But considering that income inequality is *lots* worse in the US and immigration has been *much* higher for *much* longer, maybe we are not doing too badly in keeping up with you all.
So, if you are going to say that our education system is a national embarrassment,
then maybe you'll have to say that about your own.
I wouldn't say that though. I think every country has their own unique challenges and it's really hard to compare one place to another.

My objections to your latest statement about the American educations system, which was something along the lines of being a "Darwinian survival of the fittest" do not have to do with how we fail. It has more to do with seeing how the IEP (Individual Education Plan) for those diagnosed with a recognized disability is implemented and how specific their educational experience can be. Or how the SEP (student education plan) is used for each and every student. I know that we try to meet the specific needs of our students and we care about each other. We just don't do it as well in some places as others and there's lots of room for improvement.

Some of the inequality from one school to another comes down to funding, which is where the idea for Title I came from. Our neighborhood elementary school is a Title 1 school (because of some nearby subsidized apartment complexes) and I teach at a Title 1 school, so I know how the redistribution of money works and what it is used for. Federal money is given to schools with a significant percentage of students receiving free or reduced lunch. The extra money makes a difference but it can't compensate for absent fathers and drug infested neighborhoods (which thankfully ours is not)
Another redistribution tactic is the Pell Grant, which guarantees any student the means for attending college or university if he wishes.

But no, I'm not very high on the totem pole. I'm no administrator or education expert and I wouldn't know how we need to make specific improvements.

But that wasn't really what I wanted to say. I just wanted to use the opportunity that beatpoet brought up to say I really enjoy many of your contributions and sometimes even humorous comments. I hope in the future when I do have to disagree with you I can be less emotional about it. I wish I could be like Mr. Beatpoet, who is always nice (whoops, sorry I forgot. He doesn't like compliments, so forget I said that)

PS Alan Thomas, I really had no ulterior motives in my attempt at humor but thank you for your remarks.

. There are countless Muslims who are trying to pick and chose the kinder parts of the Quran and turn a blind eye to the parts that motivate Islamists.
Stephen

Why do you assume that they are trying to "pick and choose" the kinder parts and not that they try to *understand* them within the context, specifically the historical context, that they were written?
Even if you are highly proficient in Arabic and could read the Koran in it's original text, and even if you were extremely knowledgeable about the history and culture of that time period and then, based on your expert opinion concluded that some Muslims were trying to rewrite history, what is the advantage of that? If the "true" Islam, the original version, really is violent, then wouldn't it be better to go along with the revised one? Are you trying to decide whether you should be a Muslim or not? Are you trying to determine if it is a true religion? If not, if you don't think it's true then what does it matter? Let them follow the revised version, if that's what you think it is, and lets all try to live at peace.

Stephen.Any historian will tell you that the winter in the east during 1941/42 was most severe.Hitler in my opinion was very foolish to ignore the advice of high ranking military officials.The soviets gave far more attention to things like winter clothing,equipment and training including that of the ski troops.The Germans paid a high price for ignoring the history of wars in northern and eastern Europe,quite incredible that Hitler would ignore advice from Generals who had invented Blitzkrieg and engineered the lightning fast victories over Poland and France,having said all this the Germans still almost took control of Russia,had Moscow fallen it would have certainly been over especially if Stalin had been killed,yes I belive that there would have been pockets of resistance but this would have been useless against the mighty German war machine.Had the Germans taken Moscow there would have been many captured or slaughtered by the Germans,the red army would have vanished.Stalin was hated by the huge majority of Russians so the people in that country would have likely waited until Stalin was dead and his regime finished until they decided on trying to push out the Germans but as I have said this would have been extremely difficult when you look at what Germany was equipped with.
Britain and America could never have defeated Hitler had Moscow fallen.

"Did you watch the video of the two Hitchens brothers on Youtube talking about Islam and self censorship?"

I watched a video called 'The Hitchens Brothers and Islam in Britain'. Christopher Hitchens was pretty emphatic that Islam was a mortal threat and that many authors with experience of the wrath of Islam had already warned us. We ought therefore not to be surprised when after welcoming Islam into our midst we find our freedoms, especially that of speech, disappearing. Christopher said he thought that everything should be thinkable and sayable. Christopher's opinion was that the media acquiescence after the 'Dutch cartoons' affair was reprehensible and was rooted in fear, sheer unadulterated fear.

Peter Hitchens was more circumspect saying only that he thought apparent acquiescence to Islam, or rather Islamisation, was the fear of being accused of racism - after which in Britain one may as well throw oneself off a motorway bridge. Such an accusation tends to be terminal as regards reputation, career and sometimes life. There was no comment from Peter specifically on the media 'fear of Islam' that I noticed. Unless Peter has said so here and it is in the archives I cannot offer an opinion on his treatment of the 'Dutch cartoons' affair.

"Like Paul P., for example, who either never stepped foot in an American public school for more than 10 minutes or the last time he watched "Little House on the Prairie" he didn't realize it was set in the 1800's.'

I am familiar with American public schools because my American friends sent their children to American public schools. I was a volunteer at many events and functions held by the schools and got to know many of their teachers, with whom I mixed socially. The junior league baseball games I attended as a stand-in parent were numerous. I hasten to add that I had no problem with any of this, but it did afford me a personal insight into the American public school system. My other sources are, I have to say, mainly the works of educator critics, many of whom regard the grade school system countrywide as a national embarrassment. I can supply you with a reading list at your request.

My take on the tone of your comments is that you don't get out and about much within the national system yourself.

Paul P "If you are suggesting here a 'Dutch cartoons' type media acquiescence before the threat of Islamist violence then I don't think that applies to Mr Hitchens. "

No, the fools in the media have shot themselves in the foot. Cartoons of Mohammed with a bomb strapped to him is not intellectual or theological criticism of the Quran. It is mindless and offensive. There are countless Muslims who are trying to pick and chose the kinder parts of the Quran and turn a blind eye to the parts that motivate Islamists. In their mind Mohammed is not a terrorist and so printing such cartoons was pathetic mindless unintellectual sucide that has now resulted in (no intellectual or theological challenge of the Quran is allowed), this is not stated, but everyone knows it is true. If the Daily Mail started criticising the Quran in a high profile way there would be riots world wide.

Did you watch the video of the two Hitchens brothers on Youtube talking about Islam and self censorship? That was BEFORE the world wide riots over offending the Quran, remember them? I bet most journalists and newspaper editors have not forgot!

Since that video on Youtube everything has changed and what they feared in that video has happened. The white flag of intellectual and theological surrender is flying high over Fleet Street and everywhere else for that matter, if it was ever not in the first place!

@ Elaine.
Little house on the Prairie might well have been set in the 1800's But for social engineering purposes it was at present time in its unrelenting PC just as the Walton Family . Utter bilge in respect of historical accuracy.
Peter Hitchens has spoken of the American Public School system .And I also as a resident in the 60's, not using it but seeing the results purely as an uninterested third party. found it entirely parochial. and aiming quite low,.but still patriotic . Today I surmise its not so patriotic more like ours into minorities as if almost a mania.

"There are certain contributors to this blog whose posts I do not even bother reading by virtue of the fact their name is appended at the bottom of their posts."
Beatpoet

And then there are some that write really good stuff, they make a lot of sense, but it's just fun to keep an eye on them and correct the condescending remarks they feel obliged to make about things they clearly have little understanding of. Like Paul P., for example, who either never stepped foot in an American public school for more than 10 minutes or the last time he watched "Little House on the Prairie" he didn't realize it was set in the 1800's.

I've marked you down as a 'Columbo'. There's always 'just one more thing'. But I say this in jest. I have no problem with it. You are not on my list of wiseacre smart aleks.

"It's not usually the sillier contributors (some of whom can actually be quite amusing, although often unintentionally so) I have to say, more so the ones whose tedious, lengthy posts induce a sort of narcolepsy after a few sentences."

Not everyone is gifted in colourfully swashbuckling English or possessed of a compellingly sardonic wit, so the "tedious" posts I don't necessarily bin after the first drearily pedestrian sentence. They might in fact have something to say. So I'm relatively patient with those posters. My policy is to reject everything following the first wilful misunderstanding. The wiseacre rise-seekers are recognisable at once and are rejected at once - unless I can't resist some wiseacreage of my own in return. The out-and-out ad hominem-ists are well known on here and I skip their contributions as a matter of course, responding only very rarely. The BNP I generally leave alone entirely.

As regards my own contributions: I am not a professional writer, or even an amateur one. I've been long out of didactic education and my grammar is no doubt appalling. Such basic word-smithery as I might possess I have simply inelegantly copied from others I admire. If it comes across as tedious or laborious reading then the answer, as Mr Hitchens says of his own pieces, is don't read it. I generally seek out your contributions and always try to offer some reply. You are not on my rejectably tedious list either.

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